High life
Lost marbles
Taki
rr here are too many people writing about the Elgin Marbles who have no business doing so — especially in the Spectator. I and I alone know anything about the stones, and that includes Mr Waugh Jr, who libelled me so outrageously a couple of weeks ago by associating me with Christina Onassis and Panayea St John-Stevas. First of all I am willing to bet the last tanker on my suddenly poor daddy's fleet that my legs are longer than those of all seven of the Waugh tribe's, even ignoring the fact that Mr Waugh wears six-inch lifts in his hush puppies. Secondly, when at Eton — a place Mr Waugh would have dearly loved to have attended — I was known as `Psilocolos', which liberally translated means 'a man with an extremely high-slung bottom'. Last but not least, I might have a hairy chest but my legs resemble the head of Yul Brynner. 1 give you all these rather boring facts about my anatomy because Mr Waugh wrote that Ms Onassis, Mr St John-Stevas and Yours Truly were living examples of Greek degeneration, that we are descended from tail-less mountain goats, and that we are as closely related to the Ancient Hellenes as Mrs Thatcher. Now I will be the first to ad- mit that both Christina and Panayea do sweep the pavement with their bottoms, and that they probably are descended from goats, but to include me with them is as outrageous as saying that Cypriots are Greeks.
No, as I have documented on these pages
before, and as the great historian Mary Renault has confirmed in writing, I am a direct descendant of Alexander the Great on my father's side, and from Menelaos of Sparta on mama's. And if Mr Waugh takes mY name in vain once again I shall do with his hand what my paternal ancestor did with the Gordian knot. Having set the record straight I now wish to return to the subject of the Elgin Marbles. There are two great crooks in this dishonest world and the Greek government is one of them (the other is OPEC). The fact that the Greeks recently devalued the drachma means only one thing to me, a long-time observer of the crooks in action — that they are in more trouble than they are letting on and that very soon they will be raiding homes and expropriating the few valuables we have left. Simultaneously, they will be asking their paid hacks in the English press to write about how the Marbles should be returned to Greece (they've already started, as loyal Spectator readers know). Finally, the ghastly Melina Mercouri will arrive at Heathrow to be met by Anthony Benn, and after showing those horrible yellow teeth of hers she will scream for justice from the `feelthy imperialist run- ning dogs', the British. Well, thank god Mrs Thatcher was not born rich and privileged like Wedgwood-Benn. He might be willing to give things away — especially things that belong to others — but she, like most daughters of grocers, is as likely to do that as she is ready to dump Denis and run off with that clown Patrick Lichfield. As the only ancient Greek around, I say that (h0Marbles belong to the British Museum. If we — the Greeks — demand that things revert to the way they were at the beginning of the last century, or even two or three cen- turies before, then the Marbles should go back to Athens — along with the Turks. After all, they were there since 1453, almost as long as the Marbles. This, I propose, should be the answer of Her Majesty's Government in case the crooks suddenly land in London and make demands. What the Government should not do is to follow Mr Waugh Jr's advice to sell me back to the Greeks. It would be a very bad deal for the British as, at the moment, You have both me and the Marbles. So why negotiate about things that are non- negotiable. I truly believe that Taki and the Marbles are part of the British heritage — a heritage that has been plundered enough and that both should remain on permanent disPlay in the tight little island. But even I Would be willing to make a counter- suggestion to the horrid Melina, and that is that she should finally meet a real man, a hairless wonder, the quintessential good- looking English man, Mr Auberon Waugh.
Melina weeks in Mykonos with Waugh and
will change her mind about the Greeks she seems to adore with such pas- Von. She will realise that the 'Eenglis', too, 'now that old Turkish trick called apo piso; and that the pederastic old statues are better off where they are — corrupting the Anglo- Saxons.
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